Electronic dictionaries are used to look up individual words and word combinations by users who are reading printed texts or texts displayed on a computer screen. Users may interact with electronic dictionaries in different ways.
There are a plethora of electronic devices with display screens capable of displaying text. These devices are suitable for using electronic dictionaries which may be installed locally, i.e. on the user's computer or portable device (such as smartphones, PDAs, cell phones, digital photo or video cameras, e-book readers, and other gadgets), provided on a local area network, or available over the Internet.
Many of the aforesaid devices include advanced displays and associated logic capable of supporting non-keyboard input methods. For example the devices may support pen-based input, or touch-based input.
Many devices, for example, mobile phones, smartphones, pad tablets, or e-books, have small screens, which do not allow a user to open several windows and simultaneously use several applications without frequently switching between them. A small screen makes a text translation process difficult and there is a need to integrate a dictionary with a portable device such that a user may conveniently perform text translation on a small screen.